Put Your Arms Around Me and I'm Home
by K. Elisabeth
Summary: Brittany and Santana pack for Santana's departure to Kentucky, and Brittany realizes just how painful building a dream can be. Oneshot, Brittana.


**A/N:** Yes, I'm venturing into the sparkly waters of Glee fanfic. I had absolutely no intention of writing fanfic for another series besides Bones, but I had a personal life experience that compelled me to write this piece. I struggled a lot with putting away my Brennan voice (from Bones) and getting into a more Brittany/Santana mindset, but I like to think that I did okay with the adjustment. Let me know what you think!

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"I think that's it," Santana said, shoving the last box into the back of the heavily packed SUV. They wouldn't even be able to see through the rear-view mirror, for the number of boxes and suitcases they had managed to squeeze into the back half of the vehicle.

Despite knowing that her dorm room would be approximately the size of a generous walk-in closet, Santana had set her mind on taking a great number of 'essentials' with her to Kentucky, and no amount of reasoning from her parents or Brittany could persuade her otherwise. So instead of arguing the point further, Brittany helped her play packing Tetris until every last box fit. The two girls pushed down hard on the back hatch, forcing it until the latch gave a satisfying click. Santana wiped her brow in a pleased way, sitting on the back ledge of the SUV and leaning her head against the window.

"Thanks for helping, Brit," she said, hand reaching over and taking hold of Brittany's. "You didn't have to."

"Of course I did," Brittany said with a head tilt and a grin, squeezing Santana's hand before propelling herself away from the vehicle and taking a few pointless steps in a circle, shoving her hands down into the pockets of her old Cheerios pants. She had not yet broken the news to Santana, but she mentally referred to them as her 'old Cheerios pants' because she knew that without Santana and Quinn there, there was no way she was going back to the Cheerios. Not to be the idiot second-year senior who gets shot out of a cannon. Not to be the butt of even more jokes. She'd much rather spend her time in glee club. At least they didn't make as much fun of her as everyone else did.

"Well, I'm glad you did," Santana said, grabbing Brittany by the wrists and pulling her in for a kiss. "This morning would have been insane without you. Mami won't stop crying and Papi keeps complaining about all the boxes. _Que bien, chica, las maletas! You got a second room there we don't know about? Que mas, la cocina?_" Santana shook her head and laughed at her own impression of her surly father, who often mixed Spanish language with English phrases to unwittingly amusing ends. Brittany didn't understand most of what was said in the Lopez household, she just smiled and nodded, something she was good at. Mrs. Lopez at least tried to speak English to Brittany when she was there, but Mr. Lopez switched between the two freely, unaware of or indifferent to the language barrier, leaving Santana to translate.

Brittany smiled and nodded (again, her finest skill) but inside she felt her heart break a little more. Every time Santana talked about packing, or moving, or starting school in the fall, Brittany felt as if something chipped away at the inside of her a little more. The last thing in the world that she wanted was for Santana to move, but she couldn't say that. She wasn't allowed to. Not that there were any spoken rules about it, but she knew that as her girlfriend, it would be selfish and unfair for her to say what she was really feeling. For as much as people wrote her off as being stupid, Brittany was much more socially aware than they gave her credit for. And she knew. She knew that even though Santana was smiling and joking as they packed away her things, she knew that inside there had to be a part of her that was scared, and unsure, and maybe even just a tiny little part that wanted to stay in Lima, Ohio.

Every day they spent together over the summer—curled up in bed flipping through a magazine or tucked beneath the same blanket watching a late-night movie—Brittany could feel it, the tension in Santana's body whenever they talked about it. Her voice was light and airy, unaffected, but Brittany felt the way her body changed when she talked about leaving. Her heartbeat was faster and heavier, like running prey, back suddenly stiff and rigid, her neck and shoulders tensing up as if she were talking about something uncomfortable despite her apparent joy at the thought of finally getting out of Ohio. Brittany may not have been book smart, but she wasn't an idiot, and she knew. Santana was her girlfriend, of course she knew. That was what being in a relationship meant, reading between the lines, and she could read Santana like a book—which, contrary to popular belief, she could actually read, though it may not be her strongest suit.

"What's wrong?" Santana asked, snapping Brittany out of reverie and back into the present moment, sweat trailing down the back of her neck as they stood in the steadily increasing mid-morning heat. Brittany pushed her bangs away from her face and shook her head vigorously.

"Nothing," she said quickly, smiling again. Santana frowned, but before she could probe further, she heard an exaggerated wail emit from somewhere inside the sturdy stucco building that the Lopez family called home, almost identical to all of the little squares lining the streets of Lima Heights Adjacent. Santana looked down at the phone in her pocket and bit her lip.

"I think that was Mami realizing what time it is," Santana said quietly. "It's almost noon. Papi wants us on the road by one. Are you staying for lunch before we go?"

"Can I?" Brittany asked, and Santana smiled.

"Of course," she said, taking Brittany by the hand and leading her inside. They ate in the living room, leaving her parents alone in the kitchen. It was too uncomfortable—Mami kept bursting into uncontrollable tears, and Papi leaned back in one of the kitchen chairs with a scowl on his face, flipping through one of the college brochures and having something to say about everything. Santana had stopped listening to his commentary months ago, and Brittany had no idea what he was saying as half of it was in a different language, so they were easy enough to tune out.

"So when do your classes start?" Brittany asked, trying to make some kind of conversation. They had been eating in tense silence on the couch, sitting as close as possible without actually being on top of each other. It helped that Santana ate with her left hand and Brittany with her right—they never had to worry about elbowing each other. It used to make Brittany smile, but now she only wondered how she would eat at all without her left half there. In fact, looking down at the plate of food she held in her lap, she wasn't quite sure she could even eat anything right now.

"Next week," Santana said, pushing the rice around her plate uninterestedly. "This week is just getting set up and used to the campus, and we have an orientation…" Santana babbled on but her eyes were elsewhere completely. Brittany watched her expression, barely hearing her words, and wondered if this was one of those fast-heart-stiff-back-tense-shoulder moments.

"You'll come visit me," Santana said, and the way she said it made Brittany wonder if it was a statement or a question. She nodded in response.

"Yeah," she said. Santana nodded intently.

"Louisville is only like, four hours away," Santana said. "That's not such a bad drive, you could spend weekends there. I mean, the dorm won't be big, but we don't need much room," she said, finally with a glint in her eye that had been absent over the last few days. But it was only masking something wet and uncertain beneath it.

"Right," Brittany said, continuing to nod as if she were a bobble head doll. _Yes. Yes. That's great. Perfect. Yes. Wonderful. Uh-huh. Yes._

"Mija, comida?" Mr. Lopez asked across the house.

"Si papi, I'm done," she shouted into the other room, giving up on her half-eaten plate of food. Brittany felt relieved that she could now do the same.

"Pues, como se dice, ah… ah, get the show on the road, si? Vamanos, no quiero mover in five o'clock traffic." Brittany wasn't sure exactly what he said, but based on the way Santana's leg tensed suddenly next to hers, she knew that Mr. Lopez must have said something about leaving. The most efficient languages, it seemed, didn't need words after all.

Outside, Santana's mother became so inconsolable that her father simply shut her in the passenger's seat with a pat on the arm and a mumbled word of comfort. He rolled his eyes as he turned to the girls.

"She's gonna do that the whole way," he said with a resigned sigh. "You know chica, I wish you were coming with us," he said, directing the comment to Brittany. "She cries a lot less with you around, believe it or not. I'm bringing you next time." Brittany smiled as Mr. Lopez said something to Santana in Spanish and got into the driver's seat, cranking the ignition and bringing the SUV to life. Santana looked suddenly pale, realizing that this was it.

"You ready?" Brittany asked, the two of them standing toe to toe outside the back passenger door. Santana swallowed before opening her mouth, as if she might throw up.

"Ready or not," she said with a half-smile. She pulled Brittany into a hug in one very sudden motion, and Brittany could feel hot tears against her neck. She ran her fingers through Santana's hair and willed herself not to cry. Not now, not in this moment. It was the last thing she needed. She needed to be strong for Santana. Santana needed somewhere strong to launch from, if she was ever going to pursue her dream. _I help you build the dream,_ Brittany heard in her head, her own voice from so many months ago. She never truly understood, until that very moment, just how painful building Santana's dream could be.

After several long, tearful minutes, Santana finally calmed down and pulled herself away from Brittany a little, just so that she could see her face properly. She saw the blonde's red-rimmed eyes, and something about the fact that she was not crying was a comfort to her. Few people realized how much Brittany was the rock of their relationship. She always had been. She was the one who held strong in the face of teasing and gossip when their relationship first became public knowledge. She was the one who never wavered in her belief in Santana, or herself. She planned an entire prom around dinosaurs, for crying out loud. It seemed like whenever a storm came, Brittany was the one keeping them anchored. She was unsinkable.

"I guess it's time," Santana finally choked out. Brittany nodded. Santana looked her deep in the eyes and she almost appeared to be pleading—_Please, tell me not to go. Ask me to stay. Beg me to stay. Please. I'll do it. I'll stay for you. Please ask me to stay for you._

And in that moment, Brittany would have loved more than anything to do just that. Ask her to stay, beg her not to go, cry and plead until Santana changed her mind and signed up at the community college instead. Anything, anything to keep her here. Because Santana wasn't just leaving home—she was taking home with her. Brittany's home. In this moment, in this place, listening to this heartbeat, she was home. The second Santana stepped away, she was going to take all of that with her. Without her here, Lima wasn't home. Without half of her heart with her, Brittany would never be home anywhere, unless she was right here, in these arms, in this love. She swallowed and sighed heavily, in a way that made her shoulders, and in fact her entire being, seem to sink visibly.

"I'll see you in a few weeks," Brittany finally said, forcing herself to be the first to let go of their embrace. Santana dropped her eyes to the ground and nodded, wiping her eyes with the heels of her palms.

"Yeah," she said, looking back up with an effortful smile. "In a few weeks. I'll call you when we get there, okay? I love you."

"I love you too," Brittany said, and suddenly, that was it. Santana hopped into the SUV with her parents, Maribel's weeping audible in the brief moment the door was opened and shut. Brittany stepped away as the vehicle backed up, and with one last wave from Mr. Lopez, they were gone.

And finally, she could cry.

_You put your arms around me  
And I believe that it's easier for you to let me go  
You put your arms around me, and I'm home…_

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**A/N:** The lyrics in the end are from the song "Arms" by Christina Perri. In regards to the Spanish used throughout the fic, please for the love of all that is good in the world do not leave me a review just to tell me, "That's not how you say _." I've run into this kind of review in other fics I've written with some Spanish in them. There are many different types of Spanish. Half of my family is from Colombia. Colombian Spanish is different from Puerto Rican Spanish, which is different from Mexican Spanish, so on and so forth. If you don't like the word I used for "box", for example, insert one you prefer.

With that said, I hope you enjoyed it, and let me know what you thought!


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